Friday, September 12, 2014

Oh man, gaming night last night was awesome, but when is it not? Ben got the rule book for Dystopian Wars, an awesome 10mm miniature game that we are picking up along side Dropzone Commander. We are still going to play DZC, but the local community is pretty small and waiting for our units to arrive from the distributor in England is a giant pain...seriously, the local Shaltari player has been waiting two months for his units. Dystopian Wars is huge here, so we will be able to actually play it, yours truly will be picking up Indian Raj with Britania support while I pretend to be Sir Richard Burton.

Today's tea of choice is Life in Teacup's 1500m (4500 ft.) Frosty Spring Yunnan Roast Green, arbor tree, First Day Harvest as you can tell from the very descriptive name, this green tea is harvested on March 9th 2014, I am assuming it is still frosty in the evenings there since the name has me thinking that. The aroma of this Yunnan green tea is a blend of toasted and fresh green, there are notes of pepper, toasted sesame seeds, green stems, fresh okra, and a tiny hint of kale. I have noticed that a few of the teas I have sniffed recently have the note of okra, which I find awesome, what with being Southern and eating a ton of okra as a kid.

Once I give the leaves a nice little steeping in the gaiwan the leaves have the aroma of spinach, okra (more cooked than fresh off the stem this time) lima beans and a touch of toast, these leaves smell like my favorite vegetables. The liquid has a mild mixture of sharply vegetal and gently sweet toastiness.

The first steep starts out deliciously savory with notes of sauteed mushrooms bordering on smokiness. This transitions to toasted sesame, giving a bit of sweetness to the steep, there are also hints of okra and a finish of green beans. The mouth feel is quite smooth and this tea is overall rather rich on its first steeping, I really enjoy when green teas have a sauteed mushroom 'meatiness' to them.

For the second steeping the aroma is a mix of toasted sesame and kale, specifically cooked kale rather than fresh, meaning some of the edge is taken off of it. This time around the taste does not have its 'meatiness' to it, the tea starts out with a touch of toast and cooked okra and then finishes with mild green beans and a touch of pepper. It was especially mild this steep which was a bit of a surprise after such a robust start.